Carlos: “Suzuka is one of my favourite circuits”

Carlos Sainz arrived in the Suzuka paddock with an even bigger smile than usual, following his win last Sunday, which he talked about with the press in Japan. “We celebrated that evening as everyone in the team deserved it, but then we immediately started thinking about this race,” he said. “Suzuka is one of my favourite circuits, even if I think this won’t be an easy weekend for us.”

Pitfalls. Sainz then went into more detail as to why this track could make life difficult for him and for Charles. “This track has high speed corners and you run with medium-low downforce, which has usually shown up the limitations of the SF-23,” he said. “Also, it can be windy here, which our car does not like, as it’s handling is very sensitive to variations. However, in recent races, we have learned a lot on how to maximise the potential of our package and I’m confident we will be able to do that here too. Then we can look at the time sheets and know where we are in terms of being competitive.”

A special country.  Carlos also spoke about why he loves Japan so much: “First and foremost it’s the people, there are so many fans and they do everything they can to make you feel their support, the cities are beautiful and the food is really amazing.”